ALMOST 45%
COUNTRY'S POPULATION UNDER THE BURDEN COMMUNICABLE, NON-COMMUNICABLE
DISEASES

KANWAL SALEEM
Nov 05 - 11, 2007

LAHORE: The first-ever National
Conference on the topic of "Environmental Friendly Hospitals: Managing
Hospital Waste", was organised at the University of Health Sciences (UHS),
Lahore, in collaboration with Environmental Protection Department Punjab and
Green Future.

Addressing the inaugural session,
Governor Punjab Lt-General (Retd.) Khalid Maqbool said that effective disposal
of hospital waste is an extremely important and alarming issue in Pakistan,
which needs to be taken very seriously. "There is a definite requirement
that immediate and proper decisions to develop and implement a hospital waste
management system, which is workable and affordable, are taken at all
hospitals", he added. All over the country, he said the hospital waste
management practices had not been given due attention and the waste disposal in
our hospitals was placed at a low priority. He further said that the dangers of
the spread of diseases from the misuse of discarded syringes and the handling
and resale of used blood products such as tubes, bags or plastic bottles were
very serious.

He said that Pakistan was facing a big
challenge in both communicable and chronic diseases and almost 45 per cent of
population is under the burden of these diseases.

The Governor said that provincial
government had taken many steps to improve health sector but the problems were
immense. He was of the view that the tertiary care hospitals should take up the
responsibility and chalk out schemes for hospital waste management with the help
of World Health Organization (WHO). He also lauded the efforts of UHS for the
promotion of medical education in the country.

Speaking on the occasion Punjab
Environment Minister Dr. Anjum Amjad said that infectious diseases such as
hepatitis B & C and AIDS were spreading because of proper non-disposal waste
produced by public and private sector hospitals.

She said that the management of
healthcare wastes was not satisfactory in any where in Punjab. "The general
awareness of the health and environmental risks resulting from poor health care
waste management practices is limited at all levels of management", she
observed.

She added that while there was an
attempt to segregate infectious and hazardous waste in some hospitals the
subsequent handling of segregated materials was uncontrolled, which exposed
hospital workers, municipal workers, waste pickers and recycling to serious
health risks. Inappropriate recycling of some components of health care waste
was taking place in all the cities of the province and, in general, no special
arrangement were made to handle infectious and hazardous materials, she
maintained with concern adding that some hospitals had incinerators for disposal
of infectious waste but many were not operating continuously and emission
control system was non-existent, she added.

The minister informed that incinerators
and autoclaves would be provided in 10 district headquarters hospitals of the
province. She said that hospital incinerators would be gradually shifted out of
cities and tertiary hospitals would be provided autoclaves. She also emphasized
the need for establishing special committees in each hospital to manage
hazardous waste.

World Health Organization (WHO)
representative in Pakistan, Dr. Khalif Bille Mohamud said that improper hospital
waste management posed a great health risk, not only to medical staff but also
to general public all over the world. "In USA 10 per cent of health
problems are caused by hospitals themselves in the form of infections", he
informed.

Dr. Bille said that around 250,000
tonnes of medical waste was annually produced from all sort of health care
facilities in the country. About 15 tonnes of hospital waste was produced daily
in Punjab alone. The rate of generation was 1.8 kg per bed per day, out of which
one fourth was hazardous, he said.

He was of the view that any systematic
approach to waste management must involve the whole of the hospital set up and
it must be realized that better management of waste was everyone's
responsibility.

Earlier, UHS Vice Chancellor Prof.
Malik H. Mubbashar, in his welcome address, said that UHS had always taken a
lead in coming up with innovative ideas. He briefed the audience on new academic
programmes and initiatives of the university. He said that it was for the first
time in country that UHS had introduced 17 new B.Sc courses in allied health
sciences. He informed that more than 175 applications received for new M.Sc
programme in medical lab technology.

Brig. Mowadat Hussain Rana and
representative of Green Future also spoke on the occasion.

A large number of professors,
government officials, doctors and students attended the conference.

Later, the governor visited the allied
health sciences department of the university and addressed the students. Two
workshops were also held on policies and guidelines for hospital waste
management.